TCZEW (German DIRSCHAU) , a town of Pomorze, Poland, pop. (1931) 22,728, on the left bank of the Vistula, 20 M. S. from Danzig, at the junction of the main railway lines Danzig-Bydgoszcz and Berlin-Konigsberg. The river is here crossed by two fine iron bridges. The chief industries are railway workshops and the manufacture of sugar, cement and agricultural implements. In 1923 it was found impossible to deal with the whole timber export from Poland at Danzig alone. Part of the goods, therefore, were unloaded at Tczew. The project is therefore being considered of connecting the town with the sea by a canal. If this is realized, Poland will have two ports to supplement the city of Danzig.
TEA, the name given to the leaves of the tea bush (Chinese cha, Amoy dialect te), prepared as a beverage. The term is by analogy also used for an infusion or decoction of other leaves, e.g., camomile tea; and similarly for the afternoon meal at which tea is served.
The Discovery of Tea.—The early history of tea as a beverage is mainly traditional. According to Chinese legend, the virtues of tea were discovered by the Emperor Shen-nung, 2737 B.C., to whom all agricultural and medicinal knowledge is traced. A tra dition exists in China that a knowledge of tea travelled eastward to and in China, having been introduced A.D. 543 by Bodhi dharma, an ascetic who came from India on a missionary expedi tion. Bodhidharma vowed that he would contemplate the virtues of Buddha through 9 unsleeping years. At the end of 3 years he slept and in his anger at his weakness he cut off his eyelids and threw them on the ground beside him. After a further five years of contemplation he again felt drowsy and plucking some leaves from a nearby shrub he found stimulation to complete his 9 years. This shrub was called cha, or tea. The use of tea in China in the middle of the 9th century is known from Arab sources (Reinaud, Relation des Voyages, P. 4o). From China a knowledge of tea was carried into Japan, and there, according to historical records, the cultivation was established during the 9th century.
The earliest mention of tea by an Englishman is probably that contained in a letter from Mr. Wickham, an agent of the East India Company, written from Firando in Japan, on the 27th June 1615, to Mr. Eaton, another officer of the company, resi dent at Macao, and asking for "a pot of the best sort of thaw."
It was not till the middle of the century that the English began to use tea, and they also received their supplies from Java till in 1686 they were driven out of the island by the Dutch. At first the price of tea in England ranged from L6 to £io per lb. In the Mercurius Politicus, No. 435, of September 1658, the following advertisement occurs:—"That excellent and by all Physitians approved China Drink called by the Chineans Tclia, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a cophee-house in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London." Thomas Garway, the first English tea dealer, and founder of the well-known coffee-house, "Garraway's," in a curious broadsheet, An Exact Description of the Growth, Quality and Virtues of the Leaf Tea, issued in 1659 or 166o, writes, "in respect of its scarceness and dearness, it bath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees." In that year he pur chased a quantity of the rare and much-prized commodity, and offered it to the public, in the leaf, at fixed prices varying from 15s. to sos. the lb., according to quality, and also in the infusion, "made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants and travellers into those eastern countries." Pepys's often-quoted mention of the fact that on September 25, 166o, "I did send for a cup of tee, a China drink of which I never had drunk before," proves the novelty of tea in England at that date.
Until the Revolution no duty was laid on tea other than that levied on the infusion as sold in the coffee-houses. By 1 William and Mary, c. 6, a duty of 5s. per lb. and 5 per cent. on the value was imposed. For several years the quantities imported were very small, and consisted exclusively of the finer sorts. The first direct purchase in China was made at Amoy, the teas previously obtained by the Company's factors having been purchased in Madras and Surat, whither it was brought by Chinese junks after the expulsion of the British from Java. During the closing years of the century the amount brought over seems to have been, on the average, about 20,000 lb. a year. The average price of tea at this period was 16s. per pound.